The Avatar trailer had worked like a shot of pure adrenaline. David, Tom, and Sophie threw themselves into development with the kind of manic energy usually reserved for caffeine-fueled all-nighters and championship gaming tournaments. Watching them work, Alex felt something he hadn't experienced in either of his lives: the electric thrill of leading a team toward something extraordinary.
When classes resumed at the university, Alex volunteered to return to campus—a move that had Sarah practically glowing with maternal pride. Her son was finally acting responsible again, engaging with the real world instead of retreating into virtual escapism.
If only she knew he was using lecture halls as cover for dungeon development tutorials.
Alex's course load was laughably light. Business administration at a mid-tier university meant plenty of skippable classes and professors who barely noticed absent students. Even when he did show up, he could discretely study the Infinite Realms development tools or handle simple coding tasks while pretending to take notes on marketing theory.
The editor was surprisingly intuitive—Infinite Realms had built their platform to be accessible, complete with an online academy full of tutorials and documentation. Within days, Alex was manipulating virtual environments with the confidence of someone who'd been doing it for years.
He'd ended up at this particular university through a combination of mediocre grades and family circumstance. While wealthy families certainly valued education, the obsession with prestigious foreign schools that had defined his previous world seemed less intense here. More importantly, Sarah had been adamant about keeping her son close to home.
His friends had taken different paths entirely. Danny and Jake had both been shipped off to European boarding schools during their teens, but their overseas adventures had ended in spectacular failure. Danny had managed to put a police officer in the hospital during a high-speed chase, while Jake had complained so relentlessly about the local women that his parents had finally given up and let him come home.
Both had lasted less than two years abroad before reuniting with Alex in familiar territory.
Danny's post-return trajectory had been predictably chaotic. He'd dropped out of university after one semester, burned through several startup ventures funded by his father's money, and now survived on the meager profits from two struggling restaurants and a maid cafe that hemorrhaged cash monthly.
Jake, meanwhile, had grudgingly taken a position at the family corporation before discovering that corporate life was basically psychological torture for someone with his personality. His current dream involved becoming some kind of automotive influencer, though his business acumen remained questionable at best.
"There's my target," Danny said, showing his passenger a photo on his phone. "Pretty decent looking, right?"
The girl in the passenger seat—a petite brunette with the kind of perfectly symmetrical features that screamed professional headshots—nodded enthusiastically. "Definitely handsome. I can work with this."
"Here's the thing, though. Alex is completely hopeless with women. Like, catastrophically inexperienced. We're talking about a guy who's never had a serious girlfriend, barely ever been on dates, the whole deal." Danny's expression grew serious. "So you need to play this smart. He's not going to respond to anything too aggressive or obvious. Think sweet, innocent, gradual."
Jessica Yang—theater arts major, aspiring actress, and currently Danny's hired solution to Alex's romantic drought—nodded with professional confidence. "Trust me, Mr. Danny. I've got this. Subtle seduction is an art form, and I'm practically Picasso."
Danny felt a surge of satisfaction. His intervention was going to save his best friend from a life of digital obsession and social isolation. Sure, Jessica was being paid for her services, but that didn't make the gesture any less meaningful. Alex needed human connection, and Danny was going to provide it.
"There he is," Danny said, spotting Alex emerging from the academic building. "Showtime."
Jessica checked her appearance one final time, stepped out of the car, and positioned herself along Alex's usual route to the parking area. She'd studied his schedule for days—the guy was nothing if not predictable.
The first setup was textbook romantic comedy: fake phone conversation, convenient wallet drop, damsel in minor distress. Jessica had perfected this routine during her acting classes. No man could resist helping a beautiful woman in need.
She timed the wallet drop perfectly, letting it tumble from her purse just as Alex approached from behind. Then she continued walking, phone pressed to her ear, completely oblivious to her "mistake."
Any second now, he'd call out to her. Or better yet, he'd catch up and tap her shoulder with that gentle chivalry that attracted women to decent guys.
Instead, Alex walked past her like she was invisible.
Jessica stood there for a moment, processing this unexpected development. She glanced back at her wallet, still lying pathetically on the sidewalk, then at Alex's retreating figure.
"Okay," she muttered. "Phase two."
She retrieved the wallet and jogged to catch up, timing her approach for maximum impact. Just as she drew alongside Alex, she cried out in apparent pain and stumbled into him, grabbing his arm for support.
"Oh god, I'm so sorry!" she gasped, immediately crouching down to clutch her ankle. "I think I twisted something."
Alex stopped and looked down at her with mild concern. "You okay?"
"I think I sprained my ankle," Jessica said, putting every ounce of her dramatic training into the performance. "It really hurts."
"That sucks. You want me to call an ambulance?"
Jessica blinked. An ambulance? That wasn't... that wasn't how this was supposed to go. "Oh, no, I think I just need to... maybe if someone could help me up..."
"Cool. Hope it feels better."
And with that, Alex continued walking toward the parking lot, leaving Jessica crouched on the sidewalk in disbelief.
"Are you kidding me?" she hissed under her breath.
But Jessica Yang hadn't landed leading roles in three student productions by giving up easily. If subtle wasn't working, she'd try direct action.
By the time Alex reached his car, Jessica had repositioned herself behind the wheel of Danny's backup vehicle. She followed at a discrete distance until Alex stopped at a traffic light, then made her move.
The collision was perfectly calculated—just enough impact to definitely be noticed, not enough to cause real damage. Jessica immediately activated her hazard lights and stepped out of the car, putting on her best expression of mortified embarrassment.
This was foolproof. Fender-benders required interaction. Insurance information had to be exchanged. Conversations would happen.
Alex's car drove away.
Just... drove away.
Like nothing had happened.
Jessica stood in the middle of the street, watching his taillights disappear into traffic, wondering if she'd somehow slipped into an alternate dimension where the basic rules of human social interaction no longer applied.
"What the hell is wrong with this guy?" she said aloud.
Then she realized she was standing in traffic and limped back to the car, her ankle actually throbbing now from her earlier performance.
Alex burst through the studio doors with the kind of focused energy that made everyone else instinctively step aside. He'd been mentally cataloging voice actor requirements during the entire drive over, and the interruptions throughout the day had left him feeling scattered and behind schedule.
David looked up from his workstation, where lines of code scrolled across multiple monitors. "Hey boss. We made good progress on the environmental physics today. The floating mountain sequences are looking incredible."
"Excellent." Alex dropped into his desk chair and immediately pulled up the voice actor files Jake had compiled. "I want to start recording sessions next week. We need to nail the character performances if this is going to compete with the big studios."
The scope of the voice work was daunting. Avatar required not just the main character dialogue from the film, but extensive additional conversations, quest interactions, and ambient chatter to flesh out the game world. They'd decided on English-language recording with subtitle support for other markets—the most cost-effective approach that still maintained production quality.
Alex was determined to capture the emotional resonance of the original performances. Every major character needed to feel authentic, lived-in, real. That meant finding voice actors who could deliver nuanced performances across hours of dialogue.
His phone rang just as he was about to schedule the first round of auditions.
"Hello, is this the owner of license plate AB6655?" The voice was young, female, nervous. "I'm so sorry, but I think I might have scratched your car while backing up. Could you maybe come take a look so we can figure out insurance or payment or whatever?"
Alex glanced toward the window, where his car sat in its usual spot in front of Jake's shop. He really didn't have time for this.
"Can you just text me some photos? Add me on social media or whatever."
"Oh! Yes, of course!"
Within minutes, Alex's phone buzzed with friend requests and photo attachments. The first couple of images showed minor paint scratches on his rear bumper—barely visible unless you were looking for them. The third image was a selfie of an attractive young woman with Instagram-perfect features.
"Oops, sorry! Wrong photo!" came the immediate follow-up message.
Alex studied the damage photos with detached interest. The scratches were cosmetic at best, the kind of thing that would cost more to repair than they were worth worrying about.
"Don't worry about it," he typed back. "It's nothing serious. I can handle it myself."
"What?? I can't just leave it like that!"
"Really, it's fine. This shop belongs to my friend—I can get it fixed anytime. No big deal."
The woman sent several more increasingly frantic messages, but Alex had already moved on to reviewing voice actor demo reels. He had work to do.
As the afternoon progressed, though, he couldn't shake the feeling that something odd was happening. The dropped wallet incident outside the lecture hall. The fake ankle injury. The minor fender-bender. Now this overly apologetic phone call about paint scratches.
All from young women. All with remarkably similar features—that generic Instagram influencer look that seemed mass-produced by social media algorithms.
Alex leaned back in his chair, thinking. In his previous life, he might have dismissed this as coincidence or wishful thinking. But he'd lived long enough in both worlds to recognize patterns.
Someone was trying to set him up.
The question was who, and why they thought he was stupid enough not to notice.
Plz throw Power stones.